


The Far-Too-Many Doctors

by nostalgia



Category: Doctor Who (1963), Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Crack, Donna meets them all, Multi, Sadly, but she doesn't have sex with them
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-09
Updated: 2014-07-09
Packaged: 2018-02-08 04:27:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,065
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1926612
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nostalgia/pseuds/nostalgia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Donna interacts with all the Doctors as she tries to save her own one from death.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Far-Too-Many Doctors

0.

The Doctor was sweating by the time they got back to the TARDIS. Donna helped him to the medical bay, trying not to panic. They were safe now, right? Nothing really bad could happen in the TARDIS.

“You're okay,” she said, trying to be soothing.

The Doctor shook his head, shrugging off his jacket. “I don't think so, Donna.” He half-fell onto the examining table and poked a few buttons on the console next to it. “In fact I'm pretty sure that I'm dying.”

“It was just a scratch!” she protested. “Don't be such a little girl!”

“Donna,” he said, sounding short of breath, “there's no cure. It's a temporal infection, there's nothing I can do to stop it.” He took her hand between his. “Listen, the TARDIS will take you home, you won't be stuck here.”

Donna shook him off. “Can't you just regenerate?”

“Not any more,” he gasped, shaking his head. “That's the first thing to go. But you... Donna, there's so many things I need to tell you...” 

“Tell me later!” she insisted.

“I'm in quite a substantial amount of pain now,” he said, “probably don't have much time.”

Donna wasn't ready to give up on him. “There's got to be something we can do! What would make you better? Tell me!”

He shook his head again. “I'd need an infusion of genetic material from all my previous selves.”

“Okay, that's something. We can get that, yeah? We've got a bloody time machine, we can get anything you need.”

“I can't cross my own time-line, far too dangerous.”

“But I can,” said Donna, who could see the blurry form of a solution. “You tell me what I need to do, and I'll do it. Anything. Anything at all.”

 

1\. 

Donna ran over the rules in her head as she waited in the junkyard. Even a single cell would do, but she had to make sure the Doctor didn't know what she was doing, in case he remembered and caused some sort of paradox. (Which sounded like bollocks but then most of what he said sounded like that to some degree.)

Finally the gates opened and an old man appeared in the gap. He headed towards the TARDIS, searching his pockets for the key. Donna stepped out of the shadows.

“Hello, Doctor,” she said. 

“Eh? Doctor? What are you talking about? Who are you? How did you get in here? Are you aware that this is private property, young lady?”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever. Look, I'm from Age Concern. We're very, um, concerned about how old people are going to cope with this coming winter. If I could just have a few minutes of your time...”

The Doctor waved his hands at her. “Get away from me, you vulture!”

Donna thought of the other Doctor – her Doctor – lying half-dead in the future. She pulled out a syringe. “Can I have a blood sample? For... reasons?”

“Susan!” called the Doctor. “Susan, there's a madwoman out here!”

And that's why Donna Noble had to hit an old man over the head with a plank of wood.

 

2.

“Doctor, they say I've got to wear trousers!”

The Doctor wrung his hands. “Now, Jamie, I know we only got to the finals because of our opponents fainting, but...”

Donna stretched her arms in preparation as she listened to the conversation. She could do this. She could absolutely do this. It was only Twister.

Finally it was time. The Pan-Galactic Twister Championships, 2718. The Doctor would be distracted by his need to win, all she had to do was scratch him during the finals.

“LEFT TACTILE PROTRUBERANCE! GREEN!” 

Easy. 

“RIGHT MOTIONAL APPENDAGE! BLUE!”

Okay, things were starting to get difficult. And the Doctor was always just out of reach as she twisted around him. He was a supple little git, she had to admit it.

“RIGHT TACTILE APPENDAGE! RED!”

Donna tried to get her hand behind her left leg and lost her balance. She grabbed for a handhold and pulled the Doctor down with her. Shifting her grip, she dragged her fingernails across his cheek. 

“Jamie! Jamie, I'm being attacked!”

A young man in poorly-fitting jeans ran across the arena. “Get off him! Get off him, you witch!”

Ah, that would be the over-protective boyfriend that her Doctor had told her about. 

 

3.

“Look,” said Donna, “if you don't help me then the Doctor's going to die.”

The man in black laughed quietly. “I fail to see the problem, Miss Noble.” (He was quiet polite for an evil mastermind, she had to give him that.)

“Proper dead. Completely, all-of-him, for-keeps dead. I know you don't want that, because... because you just don't,” she finished, somewhat feebly.

The Master stroked his beard thoughtfully. He lit a cigar. Donna coughed pointedly, but he just _looked_ at her and carried on puffing away like a chimney.

“I'm in a bit of a hurry here,” she said eventually. She produced a syringe from her coat pocket. “Could you just, sort of, stick it in him?”

He raised his eyebrows at her. “'Stick it in him'?” he repeated.

“Yeah, you'd probably enjoy that,” said Donna, aware of the subtext but not sure what to do about it.

“I'd enjoy his death far more.”

“You wouldn't,” said Donna. 

“I would.”

“Wouldn't.” Donna threw her hands up in frustration. “Stop trying to argue with me, I'm really good at it and I'll win in the end.”

They stared at each other, a battle of wills and of eyeballs. Donna could tell he was trying to hypnotise her and was grateful that the Doctor had given her anti-hypnosis pills before she'd embarked on this epic journey through time and space. She knew that the safety of countless planets rested here, on this moment., on the triumph of homoerotic subtext over evil. Donna had to win this battle, even if it were to cost her own life.

The Master blinked first.

 

4.

She loitered in the Louvre for ages before he showed up with a long scarf and a pretty blonde. Donna had wasted a lot of time trying to reason with the Master, so she had to get a move on. She followed behind the pair as they walked around the museum, finally driving a needle into the Doctor's arm when he stopped to admire the Virgin and Child from the Sainte-Chapelle.

“Ouch!” cried the Doctor dramatically, grabbing at his arm.

Romana turned to him, concerned. “What is it, Doctor?”

“I think I've been stung by something.”

Donna hid behind the Venus de Milo and tried to look innocent. She fumbled with the vortex manipulator on her wrist.

“A bee?” asked Romana, looking around for the insect.

“No, a redhead, about so tall and wearing a coat.”

Donna swore silently and tried to make herself smaller by sheer effort of will.

“I wonder why she did that?” said Romana, more curious than concerned. 

“It's terribly painful,” said the Doctor. “I'll be stoic about the pain, but I don't know how I'll get the blood out of this shirt.”

Donna vanished into the probably-not-aether before she heard the reply.

 

5

She was getting quite good at stabbing people with needles. She didn't know the word 'phlebotomist' but she knew that she'd be a good one.

The Eye of Orion was reputedly the most boring place in the universe (or was it the most peaceful?) and Donna was not very impressed to discover that it looked an awful lot like Wales.

She wasn't sure why the Doctor was so keen on his fifth self, but she suspected it had something to do with having looked young and pretty, and maybe that ginger in the schoolboy outfit had something to do with it as well. 

She fought him to the ground, stabbing him just above the celery and leaping to her feet before he could stop her. She was more than halfway there. She totally could do this.

 

6

The coat was... well, it was something. Maybe he was colour-blind?

“Unhand me, woman!”

“It's just a little prick,” she told him, “it won't hurt much.”

She ran round him, trying to tire him out so she could get what she wanted from him. He was feisty one and no mistake. She jabbed the needle into his sleeve, but the coat was like a protective layer of armour. Maybe that was why he was wearing it. 

“Is this some mad scheme of the Rani's?” he asked as she managed to scratch the back of his hand. 

“No idea who that is, mate,” she told him, vanishing on to her next destination.

 

7

Donna looked between the Doctor and an Evil From The Dawn Of Time. 

“You're playing chess for the fate of the universe? Bloody hell, I hope you're better at chess than you are at Twister.”

The Doctor put a finger to his lips to shush her. “Can't you see I'm trying to concentrate?” He sounded oddly Scottish. 

“Why don't you move your horse onto his little castle?” asked Donna, trying to be helpful.

“Ah!” cried the Evil From The Dawn Of Time, “your strategy is revealed!” It moved its queen across the board. “Check!”

“Oh,” said Donna. “Was I not supposed to say that?”

The Doctor sighed. “Oh well, so much for one last chance to avoid bloodshed.”

“Speaking of blood...”

A teenager in a black jacket with badges on appeared at his side. “Can I blow it up now, Professor?”

“I was hoping it wouldn't come to that.”

Donna shrugged, stabbed him in the hand, and assumed it would all turn out okay.

 

8

The Doctor had had _a lot_ of over-protective boyfriends.

“I'm sorry about Fitz,” he said, “he does tend to get a bit worried when people stab me with large needles.”

Donna tried to get the vortex manipulator to work. “Yeah, sorry about that but I promise it's in a good cause. Can't tell you what it is, but it's really important.” She looked into eyes that some people might have described as 'dreamy', but she was Donna Noble and she was immune to the Doctor's supposed charms. 

“Right,” she said, “thanks for the cup of tea.” He looked like he might have graced the cover of a romantic novel, not that Donna was the type to notice such things. “I'll be off then,” she said, before she could betray herself by swooning.

 

9

“If it makes you feel any better you can do it yourself.”

The Doctor scowled at her. “Only if you tell me what you want it for.”

“Um... to help save the... whale?”

“How is me giving blood going to help save the whale?”

“Spit'll do in a pinch,” she said, pulling out a little bag of swabs. “Go on, open your mouth.” She didn't want to have to punch him or anything, because he seemed oddly vulnerable under the scowl and the leather. “Close your eyes and think of the whales.”

“Did you get that line from Jack?” he asked suspiciously, but he went along with her demands. 

“Right,” she said, triumphantly, “that's me got what I was looking for.” She pressed the button on the vortex manipulator before he could reply.

 

10 

“Why don't you remember meeting me all those times?”

The Doctor was lying in bed with a thermometer in his mouth and an IV in his arm. “Don't know,” he said, muffled by the thermometer. “Maybe I repressed it.”

“Why would you repress meeting me of all people?” she demanded. She plucked the thermometer from his mouth. “Your temperature's gone down,” she said, feeling quite relieved. 

“I suppose I should thank you for saving my life.”

“Yes,” she said, “you should.”

“Thanks, Donna.”

“It was nothing,” she lied. “I'd have done the same for anyone.”

“Well, I'm very grateful.” He looked up at her from under his somewhat girlish eyelashes. “Which me did you like best?”

“Probably you,” she confessed. “I'm used to you, if nothing else.”

He yawned. “I think I'll have a bit of a nap.”

“You do that, Spaceman.” She tucked the blankets in around him and turned to leave.

“Donna?” 

“What?”

“I want to be ginger next time.”

“Right,” she said, “I think that's enough painkillers for now.” She left him to recover, because she did like him, and she did care about him, even if he _was_ a skinny alien prawn.


End file.
